NKorea threatens summit over drills

SEOUL — North Korea on Tuesday cast doubt on next month’s summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump over joint air force drills taking place in South Korea, which it says are ruining the diplomatic mood.

The sudden announcement by the communist government — issued in the middle of the night in North Korea — said the military exercises were a “provocation” that could affect the fate of the unprecedented summit.

North Korea always reacts angrily to the joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises, considering them a rehearsal for an invasion. But this year, with the sudden burst of diplomacy, had appeared to be different.

The South Korean and U.S. militaries had scaled back and played down the exercises, declining the news media the usual access to the drills. North Korea said barely a word about the drills during the computer simulation exercises that took place through April.

But the two-week-long Max Thunder drills between the two countries’ air forces, an annual event that began Friday, have clearly struck a nerve.

North Korea suggested that the drills were putting the proposed summit between Trump and Kim, scheduled for June 12, in jeopardy.

“The United States will also have to undertake careful deliberations about the fate of the planned North Korea-U.S. summit in light of this provocative military ruckus jointly conducted with the South Korean authorities,” said KCNA, the North’s Korean Central News Agency.

Trump and Kim are due to meet in Singapore, which would be the first time a North Korean leader had met with a sitting U.S. president.

“The United States will look at what North Korea has said independently and continue to coordinate closely with our allies,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the United States had not received notice of any change or cancellation. She said the government is continuing to plan for the summit and is confident that Kim understands the need for the exercises.

At the same time as it threatened to scupper the summit with Trump, North Korea canceled talks with South Korean officials that had been scheduled for Wednesday, less than 24 hours after agreeing to them.

North Korea had said it would send five senior officials for meetings with South Korean officials, the first such talks since the April 27 interKorean summit.

They were due to discuss some of the infrastructure aid that South Korea would provide to North Korea as part of their broader detente.